The Timeline

Why?!?! - An Author's note

For a final project in Fantasy Fiction (check out sf@sf- its a great resource for everything fantasy and sci-fi) I decided to do a timeline. But I couldn't do any ordinary timeline, right? I mean, that would be entirely too easy.

So for your pleasure, and my pain, this is a timeline showing the progression of magical education since A Wizard of Earthsea was published in 1968-- to see if apprenticeships have died in the wake of the magic school phenomenon... or if they're coming back. Or even more interesting, if they never left in the first place.

And even though this is for a class, I plan on working on it for.. well, forever. So any and all feedback is welcome, and appreciated.

Enjoy the journey through time, my weary travelers. Because here... we... go!

"Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he's secretly fascinated with a series of children's fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing in comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams may have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have ever imagined..."

Like Rothfuss, Grossman took the idea of magical education a step further. This idea of higher learning for the magically adept is getting more popular, especially after the ending of the Harry Potter series.

There is no apprenticeship in this novel, and yet the way that Brakebills College is set up makes you wonder if Quentin might have been better off if he was an apprentice...

"Now he floated through Professor March's lectures from the back row, feeling lofty contempt for his classmates, who were only on Popper etude No. 27...He hated the bitter, burned smell of the coffee they drank.... He recognized the irritable, unpleasant, unhappy person he was becoming: he looked strangely like the Quentin he thought he'd left behind in Brooklyn" (64)

Quentin doesn't seem to be growing as a person as a result of education.

Actually, he sounds like us normal humans in normal colleges during finals (haha).

Quentin appears to be suffering from all of the knowledge, without the skills to turn it into something useful. And all that knowledge could, possibly, be dangerous.

Would Quentin's situation be different if he was an apprentice? We don't know, but we do know that Brakebills doesn't seem to be helping him very much. And as much as he's learning, he's not exactly becoming more mature, or wise, or.. anything.

While it wouldn't have made sense to have higher learning in the form of apprenticeship, it does make you wonder: what is it, exactly, that makes a structured school setting so much more beneficial?

As the last post (as of right now) in this timeline, there is no apprenticeship.

But.. we saw it in 2007.

So!

I guess we can say that the idea of apprentice learning for magical education comes and goes, and may have more to do with the author's view of education than anything else.

In 2007, we have 3 titles that appear to concern magical education. This is almost 40 years after the publication of Earthsea.

THE NAME OF THE WINDPatrick Rothfuss's site gives us a pretty good idea of what this book is about..

"[T]he tale of Kvothe—from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages you will come to know Kvothe as a notorious magician, an accomplished thief, a masterful musician, and an infamous assassin. But The Name of the Wind is so much more—for the story it tells reveals the truth behind Kvothe's legend."

Here we have the first introduction of a University for magic users. Not only has Rothfuss moved away from the whole apprentice idea, but he took education to a higher spot. This idea (as we will see later in The Magicians) is pretty revolutionary. Instead of focusing on young minds, the emphasis is on cultivating minds already exposed to years of knowledge- either focusing on magic, or not.

It's a pretty cool idea.. but does this mean the apprenticeship is dying out?

"The Dark Mirror is the first book of The Bridei Chronicles and tells of Bridei's education under the supervision of Broichan, the king's Druid. Bridei is sent at a very early age by his father Maelchon and mother Anfreda to Broichan at Pitnochie. One night Bridei is woken by the moon and outside discovers a baby of the Good Folk, which he takes in and later names Tuala. As the years pass, Bridei and Tuala begin to fall apart as they come to terms with their destinies. The pair are tested to the ends of their wits until their love for each other blossoms and triumphs. The book ends with Bridei elected as the new king and his announcement of his betrothal to Tuala."

Education in the Bridei Chronicles is primarily an apprentice type deal.. but does the fact that she's taught by a higher-level tutor make a difference? Can we still call it apprenticeship if the apprentice is royalty? If not.. then what is it?

The main story arc charts the adventures of two fifteen-year-old American teens, named Sophie and Josh Newman, whose regular lives working at their summer jobs (Sophie works in a coffee shop, Josh in a bookstore) are turned upside down by the arrival of Dr. John Dee. Dr. Dee engages the bookstore owner, Nick Fleming, in a battle of magic in an attempt to steal an ancient book, The Book of Abraham the Mage (aka the Codex) from him. Dr. John Dee snatches the book from Josh's grasp, but Josh manages to retain two pages. Dr. John Dee also kidnaps Nick's wife Perry Fleming and imprisons her on Alcatraz Island.

This seems to be an apprentice-type deal too...

so, really. Is there a progression? Has the attitudes towards magical education changed? What do YOU think this re-occurring trend of apprentice education means for fantasy fiction?

Or, maybe it has implications outside of the books..

maybe.. it has to do with Pat Pinsent's idea:

"Texts concerned with education in magic by means of a pupil's apprenticeship to a competent magician inevitably reflect the conscious or implicit ideology of the writer." - Pat Pinsent (paragraph 5, Apprenticeship in Magic)

"Fifteen-year-old Eragon believes that he is merely a poor farm boy- until his destiny as a Dragon Rider is revealed. Gifted with only an ancient sword, a loyal dragon, and sage advice from an old storyteller, Eragon is soon swept into a dangerous tapestry of magic, glory, and power. Now his choices could save - or destroy- the Empire."

Now, since this is one of my FAVORITE fantasy series of all time, I apologize if I spend and inordinate amount of time babbling about how awesome it is. Really. Let's talk about Eragon and Brom:Brom serves as mentor to Eragon, educating him to be a Dragon Rider. In this sense, Eragon is an apprentice. Paolini tells us: "Brom explained how dragons mate and what it took for their eggs to hatch. 'You see,' he said, 'when a dragon lays an egg, the infant inside is ready to hatch. But it waits, sometimes for years, for the right circumstances. When dragons lived in the wild, those circumstances were usually dictated by the availability of food. However, once they formed an alliance with the elves, a certain number of eggs, usually no more than one or two, were given to the Riders each year..'" (112)The education that Eragon is taking part of is an informal, hurried, and imperfect apprenticeship. Brom is the only source of information that Eragon has access to (at the very least, Brom is the only one who doesn't want to kill or enslave Eragon for that information). When it comes to magic, Brom explains:"'This magic--for it is magic-- has rules like the rest of the world. If you break the rules, the penalty is death, without exception. Your deeds are limited by your strength, the words you know, and your imagination'" (139)Brom only explains this to Eragon after he has already used magic, so in this case the education is only as necessary. "He also learns that 'magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing' and 'is worked only by those beings who speak ... the Old Speech.' However, there are limits to the power of a Mage; the Master Namer tells the pupils that a Mage 'can control only what is near him, what he can name exactly and wholly. And this is well. If it were not so, the wickedness of the powerful or the folly of the wise would long ago have sought to change what cannot be changed and Equilibrium would fail.'"-Pat Pinsent (paragraph 1, The Earthsea School For Wizards)

Even though this is referring to A Wizard of Earthsea, the idea of "true" name for objects or people is all over Eragon. Like: "'Brisingr is from an ancient language that all living things used to speak... The language has a name for everything, if you can find it.'

'But what does that have to do with magic?' interrupted Eragon.

'Everything! It is the basis for all power. The language describes the true nature of things, not the superficial aspects that everyone sees. For example, fire is called brisingr. Not only is that a name for fire, it is the name for fire. If you are strong enough, you can use brisingr to direct fire to do whatever you will'" (140)This is pretty similar to Ged's experience in A Wizard of Earthsea, when he is impatient to learn more about magic, yet Ogion won't impart knowledge before he is ready. The whole idea of true names is one that shows a progression, and yet it also depicts the limits of education and magic. It seems important for education to explain the limits of any kind of knowledge. In Eragon, Brom partakes in limiting Eragon's knowledge, just like Ogion, though not out of malice. This type of education is very different, and yet Eragon also acknowledges a "school" that had thrived for countless years, only to be brought down by one of their own. Brom tells us:

"And it came to pass that at the height of their power that a boy, Galbatorix by name, was born in the province of Inzilbeth, which is no more. At ten he was tested, as was the custom, and it was found that great power resided in him. The Riders accepted him as one of their own. Through Their training he passed, exceeding all others in skill. Gifted with a sharp mind and strong body, he quickly took his place among the Riders' ranks. Some saw his abrupt rise as dangerous and warned the others, but the Riders had grown arrogant in their power and ignored caution" (32)

The education structure in place for the Riders failed, we find. And that failure led to the decimation of the Riders, and the Riders' education system. Which means... we're back to the idea of apprenticeship as the method to training the next generation of magic users. I'm not sure if that is commenting on the success of regular schooling (Paolini was home schooled, after all), but it does raise an interesting question: What is it that makes the apprenticeship so appealing in the current time? Because, at this point, I'm starting to think that my ideas concerning magic school are backwards-- or upside down, whichever you prefer.

* At some point in the next month I hope to also do posts concerning the other three books of this series (Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance). But! Because my professor has not had the pleasure of reading this beloved series yet, I did not want to give too much away (because that would be a shame)

** Alright, so I figured I should at least acknowledge that there was a terrible movie made from Eragon. If you want to read the book but think the movie might be good-- it's not. Seriously. It isn't so much of a book adaptation as a book catastrophe. Or death. So, hopefully they remake it at some point.

29 years after Earthsea... the one we've all been waiting for.. HARRY POTTERAnd the Sorcerer's Stone (the boy who lived)!

Oh, and Hogwarts. The school. Because that IS what I'm blogging about (but please forgive me if I go off on tangents..).

Our summary (the inside flap of the book): "Harry Potter had never been the star of a Quidditch team, scoring points while riding a broom far above the ground. He knows no spells, has never helped to hatch a dragon, and has never worn a cloak of invisibility. All he knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley-- a great big swollen spoiled bully. Harry's room is a tiny closet at the foot of the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years. But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place that Harry-- and anyone who reads about him-- will find unforgettable."

That place is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a giant castle where the Great Hall has a ceiling that looks like the night sky (and changes like the real one), where portraits talk, and teachers are experts in fields like Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and History of Magic-- which is taught by a ghost.

This is the first magical education I ever encountered, and one of my absolute favorites. The school, like Groosham, is full of mystery and intrigue, but with one major difference: Harry thinks of it as his home.

What exactly does Hogwarts do?

Well, for those of you who have not had the pleasure yet to read this magnificent series, Hogwarts educates the next generation of witch's and wizards. Unlike Earthsea and The Worst Witch the school is co-ed. I don't know if that makes a difference, but it definitely is huge in the series.

The school is divided into 4 houses: Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, and Gryffindor.These houses have students of every academic level (first through seventh years), which allows an interesting type of mentoring in every house. There a prefects which watch over their respective houses, and do tasks such as leading the first years out of the dining hall the first night. This accountability makes an interesting hierarchy inside the school itself, with prefects, head boy and girl, professors, and the headmaster (Albus Dumbledore) at the very top.

Now, if you've read Harry's tale, then you know all of this. And now you're probably saying "well SO WHAT?!"

The so what: This structure provides a very different learning environment. Unlike apprenticeships, Hogwarts provides the means for students to work together to solve academic problems (or, in Harry and Ron's case, Hermione solves their academic problems). It also makes an interesting dynamic with the professors. Professors give students the tools to work together.

A major clue that supports that idea is:

"Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, 'Wingardrium Leviosa!' Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads. 'Oh, well done!' cried Professor Flitwick, clapping. 'Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!'"

Even though Ron is pretty mad at Hermione, it does signal to him and Harry that Hermione knows what she's doing.

Flitwick calling attention to Hermione's success allows for students to know that she understands the work. Which leads to her eventually helping Ron and Harry (and for a few other reasons that I will not reveal, because I don't want to spoil it ;) )

This type of learning isn't possible in apprenticeships. When the mentor tries to teach you, hopefully you're a good student and understand the lesson. If not, well... you should probably find a different mentor, or a different vocation.

Harry Potter seems, also, to have a direct link to Groosham Grange, not only in the boarding school idea, but also:

"At the end of the book we learn that David and Jill 'would both be taking their first 'O' levels in the summer: Telepathy, Weather Control, Wax Modelling and (the trickiest of the four) Advanced Blood Sacrifice,' while Latin, reminding us of its importance in Hogwarts spells (based, presumably, on the actual history of witchcraft), figures prominently on the curriculum.We recall both the Hogwarts curriculum (Divination, Potions, History of Magic, and the rest) and the importance attached to O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels); both authors seem to be making use of the examination, O or Ordinary Levels, which for many years marked the end of British pupils' compulsory schooling.- Pat Pinsent"

So there seems to be a definite progression through the history of magic school.

But where, oh where, do we go from here?

**there are some examples of apprenticeships in this series, but they aren't until the later books (specifically books 3,4,5, and 6).

Robert Lynn Asprin release Another Fine Myth 10 years after Earthsea. Wikipedia summarizes:

"Skeeve, a magician's apprentice and wannabe thief from the dimension Klah, tries to learn the basics of magic from Master Magician Garkin for several months but to no avail. Skeeve can do little more than float a feather or light a candle using magic."

Here we have a nice, normal apprenticeship... until the Master dies (it's not too much of a spoiler! One of the summaries I read totally had that in there!) and Skeeve is left with a demon to get revenge... who also kind of ends up being Skeeve's second Master, in a way. Sadly, this book focuses more on revenge than the education, but from what we can get out of it, there are a few important details that help this timeline quest. First, it seems as though Skeeve wasn't doing too well as an apprentice. As I've looked at in previous posts, this could be due to that whole idea of peers, and how they help you out in learning. Or, you know. Skeeve could just be really bad at what he does. Either way, the apprenticeship dissolves, leaving Skeeve to navigate the world without all the knowledge he needs to succeed. I'm not sure what that says about magic school, but it doesn't seem to be offering glowing praise of apprenticeships, either.

20 years after Earthsea, Anthony Horowitz brought us Groosham Grange...One of the Goodreads members (her name is Cathrine Bonham) provided a very nice summary: " When David Eliot is expelled from an elite private school his father gets a mysterious letter in the mail from a boarding school with a creepy name. And so poor David finds himself shipped out to Groosham Grange a school where the teachers are all monsters and the students all act like their under a spell. With fellow first years Jill and Jeffery, David must find a way to get out of Groosham Grange before Groosham Grange gets him"Magic school in this context is very different from the types of magic school that appear previously on the timeline. Unlike Earthsea and The Worst Witch, the school Groosham Grange is not definitively good.. or evil. This is different. Instead of having a school that magic users attend and are taught "good" magic, the emphasis in Groosham Grange seems to be on the learning, with a kind of "let's see where we end up" attitude. "All right, I admit it. We are, frankly, evil...Mr. Fitch and Mr. Teagle have won awards for being evil...But what's so bad about being evil? We've never dropped an atom bomb on anyone. We've never polluted the environment or experimented on animals or cut back on entitlement programs for the disadvantaged. Our evil is rather agreeable. Why do you think there are so many books and movies about us? It's because people like us. We are actually rather pleasantly evil." (quoted by Megan on Goodreads)While Horowitz may be exploring what constitutes evil, there is a certain wisdom there. Maybe it isn't the actual knowledge we gain, but what we do with it. And, I suppose, on your definition of evil. "At the end of the book we learn that David and Jill 'would both be taking their first 'O' levels in the summer: Telepathy, Weather Control, Wax Modelling and (the trickiest of the four) Advanced Blood Sacrifice,'" - Pat Pinsent (paragraph 1, Curriculum) This aspect of the Groosham Grange school seems pretty normal. There are standardized tests that the students have to take to show what they've learned, which is something that we don't really see with apprenticeships in magic. Even in Earthsea, Ogion didn't test Ged to see what he learned-- Ged had to go through that with formal schooling.

So does school mean standardization? Does education mean that we have to use methods to systematically test what student's have learned? Well, apparently Groosham Grange thinks so.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Murphy's The Worst Witch series started in 1974.. only 6 years after Earthsea!hernoseinabooktells us:

"Mildred Hubble attends Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches and is probably the worst student the school has ever seen. Mildred seems to be always getting into trouble. Whether it’s potions, spells or broomstick riding, she can’t seem to do anything right. When Mildred’s class does a display for this years Halloween celebrations, Mildred finds herself at blame when their presentations turns into a disaster. How will Mildred ever earn her Witches Higher Certificate when she is the worst witch to ever attend Miss Cackle’s Academy? When a group of evil witches conspire to take over the school, Mildred might be the only one able to save the school."

This is the most recent book after Earthsea that I've found so far, and it too has magic school. The cool thing about The Worst Witch Series is that it's a children's book. However, from what I've read about it (like the link to the blog above) it's more child-oriented than Harry Potter. So here, we have magic school.

"The Worst Witch begins,

Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches stood at the top of a high mountain surrounded by a pine forest. It looked more like a prison than a school, with its gloomy grey walls and turrets. Sometimes you could see the pupils on their broomsticks flitting like bats above the playground wall, but usually the place was half hidden in mist, so that if you glanced up at the mountain you would probably not notice the building was there at all.Everything about the school was dark and shadowy: long, narrow corridors and winding staircases ...9

The initial description of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1997) has a good deal in common with this. " -Pat Pinsent (paragraph 1, Location)how does this differ from the idea of the apprenticeship? Well, education in this way has structure, allowing students to grow in a controlled, safe manner (probably smart- unless you WANT your little dears turning people into toads). There are peers to help regulate the weird things a magic user may conspire to do (ahem. Marauder's Map, anyone?), and it may also assist with the actual learning.

How many people had people do their math homework for them? If you were anything like me, then you did. Multiple times. Because math is hard.

But sometimes.. that friend who always let you borrow their homework might try to explain the work to you.. and sometimes, it stuck. The same idea might apply with a magic school. Don't know how to do this spell? Ask a friend.

One on one education is great, but there is something to be said about peer socialization and learning.

Monday, December 15, 2014

19 years after A Wizard of Earthsea, Wise Child was published. Fyrefly's Book Blog summarizes Wise Child as:

"When Wise Child’s grandmother died, there was no one in the small Celtic village to take her in: her mother had abandoned her and her father was frequently gone on long sea voyages. She is taken in by Juniper, who was a friend of her father’s, but is widely feared among the village folk as a witch. Wise Child’s afraid to leave the village and go live with Juniper in her house on the cliff, but under Juniper’s warm and loving care, she soon comes to feel at home. Juniper teaches Wise Child to read, write, tend the herbs in the garden that are used to cure the ill, and the beginnings of her magical lore. However, Wise Child isn’t truly safe, for her mother, the powerful sorceress Maeve, wants to control her, and the village priest is becoming increasingly intolerant of Juniper’s presence. If she ever wants to live safely and happily, Wise Child will first have to determine where her loyalties truly lie.""While several fairly recent books have depicted magic education taking place in a school, an earlier tradition is that of the apprentice in magic who worked with an accomplished master in what we might today describe as an individual tutorial situation" -Pat Pinsent (paragraph 1, Apprenticeship in Magic)Wise child also illustrates this apprenticeship idea in connection with learning magic. It seems that instead of carrying the idea of magic school forward after the release of Earthsea, the idea of learning from a single mentor was still popular. In 1987, it seems that the idea of magic school hasn't evolved very much, and in fact, it seems to have gone back to the apprentice work as a means to education. This might mean that the idea of apprenticeship might not be as old-fashioned as we thought.. or is it? So let's bring back our favorite apprentice, shall we?

Diana Wynne Jones' book Charmed Life hit shelves in 1977, 9 years after A Wizard of Earthsea. Wikipedia summarizes:

"It features Eric "Cat" Chant and his older sister Gwendolen, a witch. The Chant parents have some magic but they drown in a boating accident in the first pages, leaving a boy who relies on a girl who needs training. The Chrestomanci books are collectively named after a powerful enchanter and British government official in a world parallel to ours, who supervises the use of magic —or the Chrestomanci, an office that requires a powerful enchanter and is responsible for supervising. Charmed Life is set in our time, during the tenure of Christopher Chant, who is Chrestomanci in five of the seven books and is often called Chrestomanci as a personal name."

"Chrestomanci, the magician whose role, we learn in a later book, is to 'watch over all the magic in the world and prevent any harm being done with it'"(Pinsent, paragraph 1, The Work of Diana Wynne Jones)Magic users, in this context, are people that NEED to be watched over. This makes sense, right? People shouldn't be able to run around, doing god-knows what with that toad and the essence of wart. It should definitely be under some type of authority. Also, in this case, while there is an authority figure in the form of Chrestomanci, there isn't a place for overall education. Eric relies on Gwen to learn magic, and yet Gwen doesn't know a whole lot herself. The comment on education here seems to imply that the governing of magic is more important than learning the magic. Maybe this is why, in later fantasy novels, that teaching magic is extremely important. The Chrestomanci must look after all magic used, everywhere, all the time. That sounds exhausting.** As a nice little note, Piers Anthony's first book of his Xanth Series, A Spell for Chameleon was also published in this year. From what I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of magical learning going on here, but if I'm wrong, feel free to comment on it. I will add a post, a beautiful, perfect, glorious post for that novel. Thanks :)